Nudge
by justanotheranonwriter
Summary: Written in response to a generous donation by @Darvey trash to aid with relief for the Australian bushfires. She asked for pretend boyfriend/girlfriend, which I interpreted in the loosest and most angsty way possible. Not an AU, but a take on what Donna and Harvey get up to in all those car rides.


**This was written for Darveytrash, who generously donated to relief for the Australian bushfires. She's also generously allowed me to share this with everyone!**

_Nudge _

There is a game they play, sometimes.

Donna and Harvey are friends. Good friends. Not the kind of friends that go to the movies, or share what books they're reading with each other, or catch up on weekends. They are friends that know each others bones. They understand each other like they'd taken turns personally constructing the other from their atoms up. They are friends, but friends where the word 'friend' is a woefully inadequate word.

They are also friends who are constantly flirting with something more. There is an undercurrent to every conversation, every glance, every joke, every argument. They both know what it is, and they both don't talk about it.

They both think separately, that if they could just get their shit together, they could have so much more than stolen glances and playful teasing - more than the lighthearted flirting that occasionally spills across their carefully drawn lines into taut confrontation and arguments. There's always that tension, swimming beneath the surface, emerging sometimes as _makes me want to drop to my knees _or _you know I love you Donna _or _I'm sorry Harvey I just had to know_. It breaks, and then retreats.

They're both terrified.

Harvey sometimes thinks he's inescapably broken, an addict to that cycle. It's unhealthy and maddening but then, isn't all addiction? He stares into the vastness of who she is, runs from it, and is drawn back. He can see the same cycle in her as well.

The problem is, they both seem to circle in and out of the revelation of how they feel for each other, and never at the same time. There was always another case, another partner, another complication, another curious co-worker asking the kind of questions that make them - mostly him - flinch away from whatever epiphany they are flirting around the edges of.

And so, they are friends that have looked into the core of who they each are, and sometimes both lay awake at night in their rooms stretched blocks away from each other, thinking about what it would be like to discard their barriers and fears and just be. Not friends, not that trite concept of 'dating', not ... whatever the words should be. Neither of them could find them. They are two people for whom language never fails, and also for whom language has never been never adequate to explain what exactly it was that they could have.

It might be glorious. God, it might be everything.

Or, they fear, it might be broken, _they _might be broken, flirting with disaster and picking at the threads of something destined to unravel. Donna, Harvey thinks, is fire, and he is close to being consumed. Harvey, Donna thinks, is deep water, and she's already half drowned.

_Together. _It's far, far too risky a thought for two people that spend all day an arms length apart, taking turns stealing glances through a glass divider.

And so, there is a game they play, sometimes. It's always Harvey who starts it.

Harvey has carefully constructed his persona of cheerful obliviousness, of being completely unaware of anything in his world that doesn't directly affect him. Almost everyone he knows believes this construction. Even Harvey buys into it at times, because people are hard and caring about them is harder and sometimes it's a lot easier to think _fuck it _and do whatever you want and then try not to lie awake until the early dawn contemplating what a piece of shit you just were.

He's never quite able to fully believe in his own bullshit, though, and he's not oblivious to everything. Mostly, he's not oblivious to Donna. There's something about knowing someone like you'd built them from their atoms up. He knows every slight shift in her mood, in her voice, in her eyes. He doesn't know when the instinct came through his bones but he knows when he sees her every morning if she's good or if she's not good.

Every now and then, on a day when she hasn't been good, as Donna leaves the office for the evening, Harvey will be there, perched on the hood of Ray's car, flowers in hand, his head cocked to the side and grinning as if he hadn't spent most of the day watching and worrying.

Donna will allow herself to be half surprised - Harvey hates it when she highlights in public how easily she sees through his facade of self-absorption - and ask him what he's doing there. He'll present two tickets to a show, or to a gallery opening, or to some exclusive gig that has been sold out for months and that he's managed to conjure seats for out of nowhere, and drop the bouquet he pretends he didn't pick out into her arms. He'll take a hidden moment to savour the way she drops her head into her hair, blushes, smiles. She's rarely shy, but there's a softness in her that leaps out whenever Harvey dares reveal his own. Harvey smiles back.

They are, as Rachel will say when she sees the beginnings one of these evenings, 'cute'. When she says this Harvey will roll his eyes and stalk back into his office, and Donna will give Rachel the look she gives Rachel when Rachel is both insightful and on the verge of making a public nuisance of herself. It's halfway between irritated and proud, and Rachel just raises her eyebrow at Donna before turning heel to tell Mike.

Harvey and Donna will both act annoyed with Rachel and Mike.

Harvey and Donna will both not really mind.

And so, as Harvey opens the door for Donna, she flirts with the line of visible and invisible, of wanting Harvey to be more discreet, because people might talk, and of wanting him to be more overt, because what would being with him out in the open and unafraid be? Being able to add words like 'honey' to her greetings, being able to press her mouth and body against his in welcome, to brush her hand against his and link her fingers with his own, to be able to murmur 'I missed you' into his ear, though they had seen each other just half an hour earlier - wouldn't that be something?

Normally, when she thinks of this at her desk, she pulls back. He is the depths, and she is half drowned. But in a darkened back seat, with Harvey sliding in beside her and pulling his door shut, the glass between Ray and them closed, a popped bottle of champagne chilled, and the city blurring a light show at them through the tinted windows as they move down city streets, it's easy to slip into the game.

And so all their wouldn't-it-be-somethings become things-that-just-are, just for the evening. As Harvey settles into the back seat, she lets her hand skate over his knee, smoothing her thumb along the seam of his trousers. His hand runs up her forearm, and drops his shoulder slightly so she can rest her head into it. Harvey likes her hair, likes resting his chin on her head. His touch is light but warm and inviting, and Donna wonders how she could have ever thought he was distant or oblivious to her with a touch like that.

Usually, they are content just to let their carefully constructed boundaries where they don't touch, ever, slip a little for the evening. He rests a hand in the small of her back, guiding her to their seats. She touches the back of hand as she stands up from the table to use the bathroom. Their hands find each other in the dark of the show, if it's a show. If it's a gallery, Donna reaches her hand behind her to take Harvey's, gently tugs him through the sculptures and paintings, pointing out the things she loves with a light squeeze. Harvey will take a genuine interest, because she cares so he does. Occasionally he will roll his eyes at something he can't quite grasp on to, she will call him an idiot, and Donna's smile will reach her eyes and Harvey won't mind in the slightest that he had to look at art to see that smile.

People talk to them as if they're a couple; call her Mrs Specter (Donna hates the sexism but loves the assumption), call them together when their seats are ready, waiters tell them to enjoy their evening with that knowing look of people who have seen many honeymooning couples before. Harvey and Donna do not deny these moments. They're all part of the game, this refuge from the exhaustion of pretending they aren't what they are.

Mostly, mostly, they will have dinner and see their show, all light glances and light touches, jokes and laughter and they both love seeing the other crinkle at the eyes. And then Harvey will ask Ray to stop outside Donna's house, and Harvey will open the car door for her, and Donna will give him a kiss on the cheek. She will linger, only a nano second longer than a friend would, then smile at him and say she will see him tomorrow. He will just nod, jam his hands in his pockets, and watch her to make sure she gets in her entrance safely. If she looks back, he'll just grin, and so will she, and they'll smile for longer than they watch each other leave.

But every now and then, usually when something too close to the edge of jail or disbarment has happened to one of them, their game stops being a lighthearted reprieve from hiding their smiles and touches away from each other. Every now and then, the playfulness is stripped away, and Harvey barely gets the door on his side of the car shut before Donna has him pressed up against the window, her lips on his and her hands through his hair. Harvey loves Donna's hair, but she loves his as well. So she pulls his mouth against his, her fingers scratching across his scalp, and he just wraps his arms around her waist to anchor himself and thanks his lucky stars they found each other in that moment. Every now and then, they fully connect, heart to heart and palm to palm, and something else all together bubbles to the surface. They are close to being consumed, close to unravelling, close to _fuck it _and whatever comes next.

But they never quite make it past the point of no return - they're playing a game, not setting a bomb off in the middle of their lives. They're both too smart, or too scared, to scuttle the last of their lines of defence. They get close, though, they get so close - pushing fabric between them _just so _until they're both panting into each other's mouths, seeking out flashes of bare skin underneath skirts and waistbands. It's messy, uncertain, passionate, and holy shit it feels good.

On those occasions, Harvey picks a theatre far from the office, somewhere they're destined to be stuck in traffic. He also picks shows he hopes she won't like that much in the hope they can sit in the back row and climb over each other like teenagers; that never works, Donna has a love for the concept of the theatre itself. So she stares, engrossed, at whatever he's picked. Harvey stares, engrossed, at her.

Sometimes, he thinks about asking her to come home with him. He thinks she would say yes; but then it wouldn't be a game anymore and he's not sure that they would do if they actually broke those barriers down. It's one thing to gather by the warmth of a fire and entirely another to leap into it. And Donna is a fire, and he is close to being consumed.

Sometimes, as Ray stops outside her door, she thinks about asking if Harvey wants to come up. She thinks he might say yes, but then she wouldn't be able to pretend their office flirting is borne from anything else than ... well, love, and it's one thing to flirt and another to lose yourself to someone entirely. And Harvey is an ocean, and she is half drowned.

This is their game; flirting with who they really are, finding a dark corner of their world where they can pretend they are _Harvey and Donna _and not _Harvey _and _Donna_. Though this isn't really pretending, they both know. Every moment outside of these is pretending.

This is not the fantasy.

This is what real life should be - could be, if they were brave enough to draw hard lines around their shadows.

_end_

_*Notes*_

Thank you so much for taking the time to read. Constructive feedback is always welcomed!

If you'd like to be involved with donating to relief for the Australian bushfires and get a personal fic written, just DM me for details, or get in touch on twitter ( justanotheran10). Every donation helps so much to bring help and healing to a struggling country and planet.


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